Getting it right the first time. When choosing and rolling out a new solution, a few key steps can help you avoid roadblocks, waste, and frustration. To leverage the strengths of the new tool and increase user adoption, the first step is making the SaaS vs. Enterprise Decision, and choosing the right cloud products.

SaaS vs. Enterprise

Choosing a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution versus a Packaged / Enterprise offering was a bigger consideration in the past. This decision is a foregone conclusion if you have already chosen to go with Oracle Sales Cloud.   If you are still in the consideration phase, many software vendors have addressed issues that had prevented companies from adopting to a SaaS (cloud-based) solution.

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There are several advantages to choosing a SaaS (AKA Cloud) solution that have led companies to choose this type of software delivery model over the traditional Enterprise software implementation.

1. Low cost of ownership
2. Reduced time to deployment via rapid prototyping
3. Avoiding upfront capital expenditures (pay as you go)
4. The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security
5. Scalability – SaaS platforms are very scalable and take care of increased infrastructure needed to scale
6. Access from anywhere – since the software is in the “cloud”, it is accessible from anywhere there is internet access
7. Ease of integration – SaaS enables integration with other applications easily. Some are pre-built, others are easy to develop with an array of API/Web services.

However, there are factors still that warrant some consideration when evaluating SaaS vs. Enterprise.

The first: data security. Many SaaS vendors, including Oracle, have made several improvements to address this concern, as it used to be a common deterrent in choosing a SaaS solution. If you belong to an industry where there are stringent data security rules or specific regulations / requirement on how certain data needs to be handled, it would be worth evaluating the data security mechanism and certifications needed with Oracle specifically.

The other consideration is integrations. This is usually more of a factor in migrating an existing enterprise SFA solution to a SaaS solution. Even though integrations are much easier with SaaS solutions, there is a cost to the implementation, which will likely go up as the number of integrations goes up. Thus for an existing SFA application, the cost of conversion, when there are a number of integrations already built in, is a considerable factor.   That said, the cost of maintenance of these interfaces will be lower with a SaaS solution and would mitigate the cost of conversion to some extent.

Cloud as Part of a Complete Solution

Sometimes, solutions like Oracle Sales Cloud are a part of suite of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) /Customer Experience (CX) Management products.  This point matters because often, sales automation is only one of the aspects of CRM/CX that you are looking to address. Keep in mind there are other products that are integrated into sales automation solution that handle other aspects of the CX better. Please keep this mind when choosing the right product set for you.  This is also a key consideration to keep in back of your mind when looking at developing customizations.  Always explore to see if the function you are looking to develop custom is already being done by another Oracle CX product suite.   There might be a separate product that is most suitable in addressing the functionality you desire, especially if significant customization is needed.